Ogura Paper Review

I folded my Titanic model from beige Awagami Ogura paper (75 gsm). This is a long-fiber, relatively soft paper. Creases were easy to reverse and precreasing went generally well, but with some quirks. One issue I ran into was that the paper included hard grains which I could not fold even with a bone folder and which reduced my precision. Thickness varied noticeably between different spots and fibers caused creases to come out somewhat uneven. Despite the paper being relatively thin, precreased lines did not end up quite perfect. I felt that precreasing worked out OK mostly due to the large grid unit size, and that folding a finer grid would cause many more issues.

The collapse was simple in this model, and it went OK. Then, I tried to use wet-folding to shape the chimneys on the ship, and here I stumbled into the biggest surprise: the paper was very hygroscopic and each drop of water completely soaked a very large area around the place i applied moisture. When moist, this paper, being thin, completely lost its rigidity. These two effects combined, caused shaping to become very difficult. That being said, I must admit that this paper is just beautiful, and some of the long fibres match the maritime topic well. I would not recommend this paper for tessellations, except when you are OK with using a large grid unit size, but it might be a good choice for animals and other less geometric models if you dry fold them or are more skilled with wet folding than I am.